Big Oil vs the World
Episode 1: Denial
BBC2 This World, 2022 (60′)
Broadcast on PBS Frontline as The Power of Big Oil, 2022 (90′ special)
A landmark 3-part series documenting how fossil fuel companies and their political allies cast doubt and helped delay action on climate change for decades.
Episode one, DENIAL, investigates the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to research climate change in the late 1970s and early 1980s and understand its ‘potentially catastrophic’ impacts, followed by the efforts to cast doubt and delay action in the late 1980s and 1990s.
“Superb investigation” – Radio Times
“The signposts of our dawning comprehension and alarm are well known … The response that “Frontline” meticulously charts — a disciplined, coordinated campaign of disinformation and obfuscation that began in industry and was embraced by conservative political groups — is less familiar but was always in plain sight” – New York Times
“A tale of corporate power, cynical self-interest and unchecked capitalism” – Telegraph
“Powerful … revelatory … What emerges is a picture of a political system so compromised by corporate money that even when it finally appears that truth will win out, reality is swiftly smothered” – Guardian
“A powerful docuseries on how big oil has hidden climate change for big profit at the expense of our children” – Mark Ruffalo
Denial Episode
Winner – Grierson Documentary Awards Best Environment and Natural History Documentary
Nominated – Royal Television Society Craft Awards Best Director
Big Oil Series
Winner – Peabody Award for Public Service
Nominated – Royal Television Society Programme Awards Best Documentary Series
Winner – Foreign Press Association Environment Story of the Year
Nominated – Broadcast Awards Best Documentary Series
Winner – Covering Climate Now Investigative Reporting of the Year Special Honors
Finalist – Gerald Loeb Awards 2023 Video Category
The documentary team travelled across America over several months, conducting investigative research and filming interviews.
Interviewing former US Vice President Al Gore
Interviewing leading climate scientist Professor James Hansen
Archival research was a core component of the investigation
Producer Emma filming in southern Oregon
Driving through Nevada
Driving into a storm in the midwest